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Reviewing Classflex limits on switching.
Reviewing Classflex limits on switching.
Classflexing has been out awhile and the sky hasn’t fallen, nor has RP ran screaming for the exits. If anything, like many people suggested, it may have been strengthened by lessening the focus that skills = guild.
Saran said [in part]:
My two comments.
Allowing players to easily switch back to their guilds class would help promote maintaining that class, this could be achieved by not putting a restriction on switching back while maintaining one on switching to any class other than your guild. This would be helpful to the druid guilds especially as it would mean people could classflex back if necessary for totems/saplings.
To remind people this was the original proposal.
Artifact
- Diadem of d'Varsha
- 2000 credits
- Can multiclass with no lesson costs
- Can learn skills from a multiclass guild at normal rate
- Can multiclass 2x per game day
There is still the problem of if I were to take up classflexing to help an org. For instance, Pyromancer because there are no pyros around. I shouldn’t be stuck as a pyro for real life days after the domoth, or raid is over.
Estarra, you listed to the concerns of the players that there might be some risk in implementing classflex and you did the slow careful rollout and that is appreciated. It now seems like we can take of the training wheel. Whatever issues classflex has brought the time limit doesn’t appear to be a factor that benefits guilds in any manner. Let’s do away with it with one caveat: In order to classflex, you have to be able to be masochistic.
Comments
Given the mechanical limits on learning, getting approved and the importance that the existing guilds (ie. players) put on the mechanic, I would say that the implementation so far has been really successful in keeping the mechanic from diluting Lusternia's guild system and atmosphere. The enforced cooldown period between flexing definitely does not seem to serve any constructive purpose on top of all the other mechanical limits and player initiatives. It's important to note that 3 real-life days is only for people with the artifact. Without which, it takes 12 real-life days, which is a staggering amount of time. Twice a game day might be too much, though, in my opinion. Once a game day at most, but even once a game month would be much better than the current cooldown periods.
More often switching serves two purposes that improves the game beyond the obvious mechanical benefits, in my opinion. I find that flexing has allowed Guilds to define themselves even more to non-guild members, especially those looking to flex - thinking about how the new skills help to mould not just the approving guild, but also the characters themselves. You don't need an obstructively long waiting period to convey that, and something like 12 real-life day really discourages a player from buying into the system. Ultimately, you want a character to remain defined by the Guild they are actually residing in - it makes no sense that they would have an extended period of time (1 game year) when they have to tell people around them they cannot use their own Guild's skills - "I can't flex back yet because I have only been <class A> for six months." Obviously, completely wiping out the cooldown would reduce the weight of actually flexing by too much - if anyone can switch back to their originating guild at any time, then no consideration need be taken for what it means to switch out of it. To take on the skills and abilities of another Guild need to be, and should be, a weighty decision that a character makes, knowing that he is temporarily denying himself access to his originating guild skills.
A good compromise, like I mentioned, would be something like once per game month for artifact holders, once per three game months for non-artifact holders, or some variation of it. Once per game day for artifact holders and month for non-artifact holders even would work, but a slightly cautionary approach would not be a bad idea to consider at this point in time.
Once a month is still too long. If I flex to help someone else I don't want the result to be, okay, done and now might as well log out and play something else until tomorrow.
The reason to compromise on time is if there is a problem with more frequent switching. First there was the it'll destroy RP as we know it, and now the it should be more weighty? This very much strikes me as a sort of, "I don't need this for myself, but we need this to keep the unwashed masses in check unless society will collapse" type of position.
This is what blows my mind in all of this, people don't want other people to switch out of guild skills. The proposed solution to this; make them get stuck without guild skills for real life days.
So the result is you have so and so with knight skills at your advancement ceremony because they're still waiting on the clock to tick. You have your guild champion telling you (I mean generally and am not suggesting anyone has actually done this yet), "I would show you those skills, can you ask me again in half a week?
But more importantly, you have people standing around saying, "Yeah, we could totally mount a defense if I was willing/able to flex to melding, but since we have no melder, stand down."
I'm sorry, I don't see why you would flex and then... be unable to do anything except log out. Every class can bash, influence and roleplay with the mechanical abilities they are given, at more or less an equal footing. I may gripe and groan about being stuck on physical damage as a monk, but monks aren't the worst off by a far shot. (They aren't the best by any stretch of the imagination either, but that's another topic.) In the PvP arena, other factors come into consideration, sure. However, even if I flex to Ebonguard right now and end up having no chance to win a spar against a Nekotai (I'm exaggerating, I will still have a chance), that doesn't mean I have to "log out and play something else until tomorrow".
In fact, the only problem with not being able to flex more often is not being "locked" out of changing your skillsets - in my opinion, any skillset in this game is sufficient for day-to-day playing. As long as you have a guild's skillset, you are extremely unlikely to be troubled in your gameplay. (Rogues survive well enough, with less than a full guild skillset). The problem of the long cooldown periods is the possibility of being a Nekotai, but unable to do anything Nekotai-ish mechanically for an entire game-year (unless you spend 2000 credits). For whatever reason, that is simply excessive, and could do with some toning down.
The reason to retain classflex cooldowns is fairly simple from a strictly mechanical point of view: currently, it would impact gameplay a great deal if a skilled combatant can switch from one archetype to another at the drop of a hat. Okay, maybe not a drop of a hat, but around 10 minutes (?) or so of re-deffing, and tweaking system settings. (Make proper aliases and you could flex and redef if you have a 2 minute breather, even). This point might be debatable, I personally argued against it somewhat during the discussions leading up to classflex but even I acknowledge that there is at least room for consideration for its validity - if Synkarin could change from Bard to Chemantics with a snap of his fingers, or Kelly could go from inquiKnight to Tahtetso while I was phoenixing and getting back up with little more than a shrug of her shoulders, I would be rather concerned. After all, the appearance of a single person with the right skillset has turned the tide of battles before. You also acknowledge this yourself:
"We have no melder, let's try again next time" is exactly what is happening now (and has been since forever). If someone could very simply fill needed gaps as and when they wanted with little thought for the consequences, that would definitely have impacts on the meta combatscape. Note that this does not have to be a bad thing, but whether or not it's something we want, could be more thoroughly discussed.
The reason to retain classflex cooldowns is not so simple from a roleplay point of view - after all, every person's roleplay is their own. Who am I to say that Steingrim will cease to be Steingrim in a wholesome way if he can switch from Illuminati to Pyromancer twice a game day? How can we even say that removing the classflex cooldown entirely will have any impact at all on any RP of any kind? It's just as equally likely that it will, as well as it won't. Maybe if you shorten the cooldown, there will be a sudden exodus of Pyromancers to the Illuminati guild, because they know they can get flex into their Pyro skills if they buddy up to the Pyro GM oocly, and jump over the wall of the Illuminati GM refusing to grant permission to anyone... or maybe it won't happen. We don't know. But that's certainly a possibility, not just with Pyro/Illuminati.
And we finally come to the reason to "compromise" - we don't know what will happen, so I suggested a compromise in the middle, so we can see what will happen with the more gradual change. Note that here is the crux of this post: I never did give any "reason" for "compromising" in my original post that you quoted. The "it'll destroy RP as we know it" and the "it should be more weighty" are both NOT reasons for compromising. I would appreciate if you didn't put words in my mouth. To compromise is to come to a middle ground, I don't see what's so disagreeable about that. No one is frothing at the mouth and saying that RP will face apocalypse and we should keep the cooldown because otherwise "society will collapse". And unless I misread your post, no one is calling anyone else "unwashed masses" either. There is no one riding on a self-righteous mount trying to speak from a position of privilege. Please stop painting the existence of a classflex cooldown as a repressive form of control, because it isn't. From a player's point of view, it's a mechanic that potentially is preventing some problems in RP - whether it's working or is just a placebo effect, we don't know, but at least there are no (major) problems with the status quo.
Well now that I'm at a computer instead of diddling on my phone, I can explain my position on class flexing a bit better.
One of the greatest draws to Lusternia when I started playing was that it was set apart from the other IREs because combat in Lusternia, unlike Achaea for example, was not defined by who had the most artifacts. Artifacts helped, some more than others such as the magic damage rune and warrior weaponry artifacts, but they didn't create an insurmountable chasm between the "haves" and the "have nots." I proved this myself as a high tier combatant for many years that competed with the most artied PKers out there with none of my own, up until the last RL year or so where I bought a couple. Lusternia combat really was a realm where anyone could be successful with a little talent and a lot of work and practice.
I love this about Lusternia, and even as the power creep has slowly crept along, it's remained largely the same in this area. Sure, there a metric ton of artifacts, both for dingbats and credits, that you can amass and that will have a sizeable impact on the game for you. I would actually say that Ascendant powers have more of an impact on combat in Lusternia than artifacts, which is a limited resource accessable by anyone. Sure, some people get disgruntled because they can't buy special snowflake status, but I've always found it to be a wonderful and unique aspect of lusternia, that the pay for perks group didn't rule pk mountain.
This sort of proposed artifact can change this. It's that good, IMO. Giving the "haves" the ability to reach that degree of meta gaming can reshape how group combat functions. I already dislike that we can now go "Oh we don't have a melder, Shuyin we need you to be a Pyro kthx," but it is what it is and I understand the necessity of that particular change. However, I don't like the idea of implementing an artifact that will inevitably lead to the meta becoming people swapping classes every hour to counter such and such pker as such and such class or such and such group. Sure, that can happen now, but it's limited. As a pure SD, I don't want PK to become the "top tier" fighters just swapping to a class that counters SDs any time they fight me, then swapping back an hour later. A self serving wish, perhaps, but I believe it takes away from the integrity of Lusty's PK system. Being able to mastercard away any sort of class weakness will be great for business when released, but the long term consequences will be a much less desirable pk system (to me, anyways). What's the point of a class weakness if you can just switch classes the moment the weakness matters.
I look at PK as a imaginary draft. All the PKers line up and all the orgs pick them one at a time. The moment artifacts become so influential that a person of lower skill will be chosen over another with higher skill because of the artifacts they posess, that is the moment PK has lost its value to me. Largely why I left Achaea years ago, honestly. I think an artifact that lets people change class every hour is just that type of artifact. Why take a highly skilled pure class player, when a little less skilled player with all the classes from x org is available? Why take the higher skilled person when the lower skilled person can be a melder, then switch to a hindering guardian, then switch to a faceroll monk all within the same domoth fight-always filling the niche that is needed at the time.
Anyways, that's my perspective. I think multiclass needs significant downtime, or classes just become blurred together and PK is actually an artifact fight.
Disclaimer: I have artifacts, I bought them all with RL money. I could buy this if I felt like it. I just don't think it's best for the long term interest of the game.
I agree with Celina, in that no artifact should exist as described. Instead, everyone should get classflexing without lesson cost (including no/significantly dropped skillflexing cost). Everyone should be able to learn their second class at the normal (already quite expensive) rate. Everyone should be able to flex at least once per RL day. The existing classflex system is only really accessible to a very small, already powerful portion of the playerbase.
*With 'it' still being restricted enough that you can't swap around in the middle of a fight, or anything like that. As it stands, it's already mostly restricted by the real life cash sitting in the player's wallet, in a way that creates a very strong artifact advantage for players with the moolah to burn. That's not a real or useful restriction, and I'd hazard to say it looses money in the long run for the game, if that's one of the bigger considerations.
Nor do I like being charged $20 entrance fee and a minimum two hours wait time to (E:)fully access things I've already paid for out the nose.
Again, no one has ever suggested making it practical to change class and resume fighting on the drop of a hat. For instance, Aetolia's system has all of the features I suggested. However, it also imposes a 10 minute aggression cool down period, you have to be not fighting for ten minutes before swapping, no jumping into battle, seeing your enemies, and swapping to 'a class that counters', assuming you're given totally free access to all classes at once (not suggested implementation), or that you've spent lessons to learn every skillset (not suggested use). It would be easy to put in these hard limits to manage abuse, without requiring large monetary investments in artifacts and use taxes.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Mechanics should always trump RP where inter-class balance or meta game health is concerned. Doesn't matter if your guild is a secretive cabal like the Nekotai or Shadowdancers, if you try to limit newbie progression in order to "protect" your secrets for example, that RP should (and will) be pulled out from underneath your feet.
In all other cases, there are no hard and fast rules. Mechanics doesn't have to trump RP every time, nor does RP have to trump mechanics everytime. Business sense, profit models etc all have an impact on deciding what mechanics should be available and what mechanics to implement in the game. When a certain mechanic can be help make the combat style and strategy of a specific archetype very very very much more fun and desirable, it might possibly be added to said archetype even if it doesn't really fit into the RP theme, since this would increase combat enjoyment and thus interest in the game. On the flip side, by allowing RP to take a significantly important, if not higher priority, than mechanics when such is possible will also help increase immersion for what is theoretically an RP-enforced MUD. This is comment applies directly to the Guild-approval that is required by the system. It doesn't serve a purpose to mechanically preserve inter-class balance, because the only people who can access a guild via classflexing are restricted to the same org (due to the restrictions on what nexus powers what abilities). So you won't get an Gaudiguch person using Aeromancer skills in combat, even without guild approval anyway.
EDIT: @Enyalida I'm quite able to classflex. I'm just a bit disappointed that there are guilds out there that simply go... 'no'. Not... "Sure, but you have got to do x and y and z" or "We don't trust you enough" Just... no.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Personally, I hate classflexing. But since we have it, here are my thoughts:
It is available to everyone, and it should be. However, I hate what Celina also talks about--the ability to quickly, in the moment, flip classes just like that. Is the current restriction too much? Maybe. I don't really know. But flexing classes should never be convenient or easy to do multiple times.
And "mechanics should always trump RP" is a blatantly stupid argument. Sometimes, yes. Always? No. I do not think the examples given (a guild being a secretive kabal that carefully guards its secrets) is a Newbie-Barrier and needs to go.
The guild-approvals required are not really a problem, is the side I am arguing for. There's nothing wrong with class-flexing requiring you to be at the mercy of a guild. It may not be entirely fair to equate it to joining a new guild via normal means because of the larger amount of money involved, but in effect, that's exactly what it is: "joining" a guild for its skills, which has always, and probably will always, put you at the mercy of the players who hold leadership posts in said guilds.
Ok, carry on.